Mumbai: In a major development, state road development firm MSRDC has floated tenders for the much ambitious Rs 46,000 crore Mumbai-Nagpur Super Communication Expressway project. Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) has invited request for qualifications (RFQ) for constructing the 706 km long Maharashtra Samruddhi Corridor.

The cost of the project is estimated at Rs 46,000 crore, which includes development of the nodes along the expressway.Out of the total cost of the project, the cost of civil work for which the tenders are invited is estimated at Rs 27,650 crore, Rs 13,000 crore is towards land acquisition, land pooling, Rs 2,500 crore for node development and Rs 500 crore for utility shifting.

“We are in the advanced stage of acquiring the land for the project. We intend to float the request for proposal (RFP) by May and we are hopeful of completing the land acquisition,” MSRDC Joint Managing Director Kiran Kurundkar told PTI here today.

The project, along 706 km with 24 townships will require 10000 hectares of land. Of the total, only eight per cent falls in fertile agriculture category.

The government has adopted land pooling method wherein farmers whose land is acquired would be returned 25-30 per cent of the developed land and annual crop loss compensation.

As per the RFQ, the project will be developed in 16 packages on EPC mode.MSRDC has already appointed SBI Capital for assisting it in raising funds for the project.“We are expecting some assistance from the state government through budgetary provision.

For the rest we will raise rupee loan and for this we have appointed SBI Capital. We are also in talks with Asian Development Bank in case we need further financial assistance,” he added.Kurundkar further said we expect the work orders to be issued by August this year and complete the project by 2019.